It has been a grey and cold week. The snow came in force the day after XMas. In fact, it was such a mild day on Christmas morning that the previous snow melted away!

My folks got a fake XMas tree this year: One that has colored lights already on it. All it needs is the ornaments. I don’t blame them. It is an annoyance trying to fit a real tree in a base, then string lights on it, then keep the tree watered.

That is why I myself got a fake tree last year. And the house is too small for a real tree, given its ceilings are only half a foot higher than I am. The ornaments on my tree are secured with twisty ties to keep Thyme from knocking them off. And I put the two XMas Coke bottles with plastic poinsettas in the other windows. That is the extent of my XMas holiday decorations.

I got Madre a new Virgin Mary plant holder to replace one that got smashed a couple of months ago. I got my sister the editor a one-terabyte external drive to store all her voluminous files. Everyone else got gift cards.

I also got Moleskin books for the annual meeting of the Friends of the Bracken Library, where I get to be president for a third year, so that all offices will be open next year. I also won a drawing for a XMas basket that included a conical cocoa cup. And I got a two-gigabyte thumb drive that was to be a swap gift at the Whoosier Network XMas party; but I did not go due to inclement weather in Muncie.

I pretty much got what I wanted for XMas: New work pants and a new toaster oven, among other things. That got me thinking that, now that I have new Dockers (the work pants), I might just as well get new jeans, too.

So, the next day, I went to the Big R store in Marion and bought three parts of jeans in the same size as the Dockers. Big R was the only place that sold the size I wear. I figured as much because the store caters to local farmers, who are often a lot bigger than I am.

I stayed home on my vacation for all but one day during XMas week. Mostly I did stuff on my computer, working on my Web site. I also installed a couple of gigabytes of core memory on the folks’ computer. That computer is a professional-model Gateway. Gateway sold its professional computer division to some company that went belly-up within a year. (Incidentally, that is way we use Lenovos at work.) This meant that the only way I can find out what memory it took was to open it up, to record the make and model of motherboard, and look that up.

I did go to the library on last Tuesday to do some work at a workstation. There I met one of my favorite co-workers … for the last time. She was fired just minutes before. Yow!! I never learned the reason. She has a husband and two kids, and now she was stuck celebrating XMas with just them, since she had no money to spend it on anyone else in her extended family. Let’s hope she had a happy XMas, all the same.

I read the letter from my employer on the impedient cuts it will have to make because the governor of my State wants to cut more money from the State budget. It looks like, as an economy, my ex-co-worker’s position will likely not be refilled. Everyone there will have to work harder with what they have.

I had wanted to retake my ASCP examination on Tuesday. But last week I got a call from Ivy Tech Marion, where I was to take the exam. I was told that their connection problems with Prometric, which gives the exams, have gotten worse. They suggested taking the test in Muncie. I did not want to navigate the labyrinth that is Muncie’s street system. I decided to cancel the test, and reapply next month. I want to get this test passed and over with before my evaluation in March.